3 ms·

>That's 2005, but it gives you an idea of what was available at the time for ~$500 Really not much, it seems. For many of today's users, cell phones have feat

>That's 2005, but it gives you an idea of what was available at the time for ~$500 Really not much, it seems. For many of today's users, cell phones have feature parity with desktop PC's for their casual use case (gaming, multimedia, Internet browsing, and even a lot of productivity software). None of that holds for Treo in 2005-2006.

dragontamer 8y ago
> gaming Heh. Ask how many friends know how to play Nokia's "snake" game. > multimedia People didn't really use PCs to watch videos back then. I mean, you could, but DVDs were usually played on DVD players, maybe your game console. BluRay didn't exist yet, and I'm sure you would have still come across VHS Tapes at that time. 2005... yeah, I distinctly remember renting movies from DVD-rental stores back then. I think Netflix (the DVD-rental part) was gaining in popularity at that time, so people figured DVD-rental stores were going away. If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. > Internet browsing Typical users back then didn't even have broadband yet. 2005 was kinda magical when you could send emails through your phone. For the kids out there: 56kbps (~7kB/s speeds) dial up connections would take 5-minutes to download a 2MB Newgrounds video. Oh yeah, and Youtube didn't exist yet. Mostly because 2MB files were already difficult to distribute. With that being said: those 2MB to 5MB Newground games were certainly what the casual people would do on the internet, at least at my school back then. Either that, or distribute TI-83 calculator games (TI83 phoenix). -------- It was a different time, with different computing expectations.
- rhn_mk1 8y ago
  > If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. The casual user also changed. I remember that 90% of my computerized friends eMuled all movies they could get. The Lord of the Rings copies filmed using handleld cameras from cinema screens are distinctly burned in my memory. At the same time, DVD and Video CDs were quite popular when attached to magazines, which bumped the computer usage, as most everyone had a computer and few people had DVD players. Together, I think most heavy watching happened on computers also back then. When it comes to the internet, eMule arrived because dial up was dying already, meaning that people could actually use it for something useful. I don't think usage patterns changed that much.

dragontamer 8y ago

> gaming Heh. Ask how many friends know how to play Nokia's "snake" game. > multimedia People didn't really use PCs to watch videos back then. I mean, you could, but DVDs were usually played on DVD players, maybe your game console. BluRay didn't exist yet, and I'm sure you would have still come across VHS Tapes at that time. 2005... yeah, I distinctly remember renting movies from DVD-rental stores back then. I think Netflix (the DVD-rental part) was gaining in popularity at that time, so people figured DVD-rental stores were going away. If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. > Internet browsing Typical users back then didn't even have broadband yet. 2005 was kinda magical when you could send emails through your phone. For the kids out there: 56kbps (~7kB/s speeds) dial up connections would take 5-minutes to download a 2MB Newgrounds video. Oh yeah, and Youtube didn't exist yet. Mostly because 2MB files were already difficult to distribute. With that being said: those 2MB to 5MB Newground games were certainly what the casual people would do on the internet, at least at my school back then. Either that, or distribute TI-83 calculator games (TI83 phoenix). -------- It was a different time, with different computing expectations.

rhn_mk1 8y ago
> If I remember 2005 correctly, it was a time where you'd have to play with DivX and XVid codecs before anything actually played on your PC. Definitely not easy for casual users. The casual user also changed. I remember that 90% of my computerized friends eMuled all movies they could get. The Lord of the Rings copies filmed using handleld cameras from cinema screens are distinctly burned in my memory. At the same time, DVD and Video CDs were quite popular when attached to magazines, which bumped the computer usage, as most everyone had a computer and few people had DVD players. Together, I think most heavy watching happened on computers also back then. When it comes to the internet, eMule arrived because dial up was dying already, meaning that people could actually use it for something useful. I don't think usage patterns changed that much.